Word Power

Dan Kaufman’s “Force of Light,” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

The poet Paul Antschel—more commonly known as Paul Celan—was born in 1920, into a German-speaking Jewish family with roots in Romania. Along with a number of other Jews, he and his parents were rounded up in the early forties. His parents died in the camps, but their language-loving son survived. The composer Dan Kaufman has set some of Celan’s most haunting lyrics to fine, elegiac music on “Force of Light,” an album distributed by the prolific jazz artist John Zorn. On Jan. 7, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Kaufman and his band, Barbez, will play the album, while the Scottish performance artist Fiona Templeton reads selections from Celan’s work, against a backdrop of video imagery by John Jesurun. When he won the Bremen Prize, in 1958, twelve years before his death, Celan reflected on his experiences as a Holocaust victim, saying, “Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.” ♦

Hilton Als, The New Yorker’s theatre critic, wrote the catalogue essay for the Robert Gober retrospective currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art.